


Daydreams

by seagrot



Category: Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 20:01:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14655135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seagrot/pseuds/seagrot
Summary: Arvis closed his eyes and imagined, as he had since he was seven, the world was a different place.





	Daydreams

**Author's Note:**

> happy genealogy of the holy war day! i hope you like angst and navel-gazing because boy do i have you covered

The weight of the crown didn't fill the emptiness in his heart, but for a moment he pretended it did.

Arvis closed his eyes and imagined, as he had since he was seven, the world was a different place. He pictured before him endless crowds instead of corpses. he pretended to hear rousing cheers of empassioned commoners, not screams of broken soldiers desperately clinging to life. in his mind's eye, he was a righteous king, earning his throne through hard work and goodwill as his living father passed it down to him with a smile.

He opened his eyes, and with a deep breath reentered his reality. Burning overwhelmed his senses, and the death around him seeped directly into his pores. He could taste the ash, feel its grit through his palate, see it floating into the sky with the ghosts of the dead. The whole scene would be overwhelming if not for the adrenaline high smothering his humanity.

The world was finally his. Its dark skies, its dark hearts, its dark palaces all belonged to Arvis of Velthomer. It wasn't as idealistic as the world he created in his dreams, but it was one he could shape to his will. With this last battle, everything finally fell into place.

There was no more time for mourning, no time for regrets. Arvis walked off the battlefield before the final meteors fell, as Sigurd's remains fluttered away in an unceremonious pile of ash.

†††

Arvis spent his final hours on Earth wishing he was anywhere else.

He daydreamed of a world where Sigurd had lived at Belhalla, and they returned to the king together. Deirdre was reunited with her true destined lover, the spell wiping her memory lifted as Manfroy burned at the stake. Julia and Seliph grew up together happy, maybe even with Julius, or whatever he might've been named if Sigurd sired him. The empire was rebuilt, even better than he could've ever dreamt twenty years ago. There were no child hunts, no cults, no wars, no famine.

If only it were so easy to fix history.

Seliph's army was on the horizon, having already taken out the bulk of the Roten Ritter and reclaimed Tyrfing as Arvis hoped. It was almost funny. For years he fancied himself as the hero to his own story, but all he'd managed was to make himself the villain of someone elses'. It seemed fitting that he'd die on the blade of Sigurd's child—he was living on time borrowed from him, after all.

Holding Valflame to the sky, Arvis put on a grand show for the boy, raining fire upon his army and giving him the climactic battle a hero deserved before the finale. He wanted so badly to speak to Seliph honestly; to tell him all his regrets, his plans, his memories of Sigurd and Deirdre and everyone else he never had the chance to meet.

He lied instead, and met his end with a broken smile.


End file.
